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“Is that why you treated me like some tramp last night?”
Her voice broke, alarming him, so he bore down. “I suppose it was, yes. It’s not a regular thing, after all, for me to see you looking that way.”
Frustration had her throwing up her hands. “ What way?”
“Lovely.” He saw her eyes go round in shock, and took advantage of the moment to step a little closer. “You looked so polished up and female.”
“I am female, for God’s sake.”
“I know it, but you don’t usually trouble to make it an issue.”
“Why should it be?” she demanded. It was a sore point, and one she hated probing. “Just because I know how to hammer a nail or fix a pipe, I’m not allowed to be a woman as well? Wearing a dress and some lipstick makes me a tramp?”
“No, it makes me a fool for letting you think I meant that. Clumsy, foolish, and spiteful. And I’m sorry for it.”
When she said nothing, he stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again. Best, he told himself, to get it all out and over. “The truth of it is, I was thinking of you, thinking about things when you walked in, looking the way you did and about to go off with another man. I was jealous. I didn’t realize it at the time, didn’t want to admit it later after my mind had cleared a bit. I’ve never been jealous before. I can’t say I cared for it.”
She’d calmed down enough to begin to speculate. And consider. “I didn’t like it much myself.”
“I told myself you’d done it—put on that dress and left your hair all falling down and made your mouth slick and wet to stir me up.”
Yes, she considered. And she nodded. “Sure I might’ve, if I’d thought of it. My mind just doesn’t work in those clever ways.”
“No, you’re a straightforward woman. I know it.” He stopped, angled his head. For every step he took she took one in evasion. “Why is it, Brenna, that when I come toward you now, you back away? Aren’t you the one who started it all?”
“Aye, I did, but I’ve had time to reconsider. Just keep your distance, will you, while I’m mulling it over,” she demanded when she caught the dark male amusement in his eyes. Not an expression to settle a woman’s nerves. “We’ve been friends a long time, and I don’t want to lose that part of my life. If we’d acted when I first mentioned sex, if you’d just grinned and said, ‘Well, Brenna, what a fine idea, let’s go up to bed,’ it would’ve been fine all around. We’d have enjoyed ourselves, kept it simple, and parted friends as always. But now it’s stopped being an impulsive sort of thing and it’s complicated.”
He solved the problem of keeping her still by reaching out, planting his palm on the wall just above her head. Before she could shift, he planted the other and caged her in. “You’ve a habit of acting on impulse, and I’m one for pondering over things. You move fast and I move slow.”
Her blood was beginning to hum. But pride kept her in place now, as sure as his arms. “Jesus, Shawn, a glacier moves with more speed than you.”
“But I get where I’m going just the same, don’t I? I’m thinking, Brenna, that weighing impulse and consideration, speed and caution, we can still meet somewhere in the middle of things.”
“It’s too . . . sticky now.”
“Your heart’s pounding,” he murmured as he eased closer. “I can almost hear it.” Watching her, he laid his hand between her breasts. Awareness snapped into her eyes, breath trembled between her lips, then drew in, soft and sharp when he let his fingers spread. “Now I can feel it. I’ve wanted to touch you.”
Her knees wanted to buckle. “You’d never have thought of it if I hadn’t mentioned it.”
“Sure and I can’t say I mind it being your idea, as I’m thinking of it now.” He lowered his head to nip lightly at her bottom lip. “And I’m finding it hard to think of much else. When I came up here today . . .” He shifted his head so his lips skimmed up along her jaw. “I thought I’d apologize, make things as right as I could between us. Then I was nearly sure, very nearly sure that I’d take a step back and leave it that way. But now I want to touch you.” He toyed delicately with the nipple that strained against her shirt. “I want to taste you.”
And finally, finally covered her mouth with his.
She gripped his hips, fingers digging in as she let her tongue dance with his, let her lips heat with his. She wanted faster, hotter, harder. She thought she might die from the gentle and glorious warmth.
“Wait.” Something was breaking loose inside her. A vital something that needed to stay firmly in place. “Wait. You think I need all the fancy work.” She turned her head, but that only meant his teeth found her ear.
Oh, Jesus, the man had the most magical of mouths.
“I don’t need it.” Her breath was coming hard and fast and making her dizzy. “Or seductions.”
“I do.” He tilted his head so he could nibble down her throat.
“If you’ve decided—and it appears to me you have— that we should have sex after all, we’ll take an hour now and go to your cottage.”
His chuckle was muffled against her skin, skin that was soft as sun-warmed silk. “Somewhere in the middle, Brenna. I want you.” He felt her shiver as his mouth found hers again. “But I’ve a mind to drive us both a bit crazy before I have you naked and under me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more enjoyable that way. Do you like it when I do this?” She drew in her breath in three short gasps when he feathered his fingers just under her shirt so the backs of them rubbed the curve of her breast. “I see you do. Your eyes are blurry.”
“I’m half blind. The hell with the cottage, we’ll just finish this right here.”
But when she locked her arms around his neck, he laughed and swung her in a circle. “Oh, no, we won’t. I won’t short myself or you of the pleasure.”
“It doesn’t
seem like middle ground from where I’m standing. It’s leaning heavily toward your way of things.”
“Maybe, but you’ll thank me for it when we’re done.”
“So like a man,” she said when he set her on her feet. “Always thinking you know what’s best and how it all should be done.”
His teeth flashed. “Brenna, darling, if I wasn’t a man we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
She blew out a breath, settled her cap more firmly on her head. “Well, you’re right about that, aren’t you?”
“You told me you had an itch, well, I’ll scratch it for you, in my own time and my own way. That’s fair.”
She looked at him, nodded. “Frustrating, but fair.”
“And wherever we stand now or after, we walk away friends at the end of it. As much as I want you, I won’t touch you if we don’t take a vow here to walk away friends.”
How could she help but care for him, Brenna wondered, when he was the kind of man who would think of that? And would mean it. “Friends now, during, and after.” She offered her hand on it. “I’ll promise that to you.”
“And I to you.” He took her hand, held it. Then, just to see her reaction, brought it to his lips to nuzzle.
Her mouth fell open, delighting him into a rolling laugh.
“Mary Brenna, I believe you’re in for a few surprises along the way.”
“Maybe.” She tugged her hand free, put it behind her back, where it continued to tingle. “But I’m not without a few tricks of my own.”
“I’ll count on that.” Plucking the key from his pocket, he turned toward the door. “Why don’t you come down tonight and I’ll fix you supper, and I can show you some . . . surprises in the storeroom.”
“In the storeroom?” Before she could laugh, a thought took root. “Just how many women, might I ask, have you surprised in the storeroom?”
“ Mauverneen. ” He winked at her before he strolled out. “I’m not a man who counts.”
NINE
“MAGEE’S MAN FINKLE’S here.” Darcy hissed it as she scurried into the kitchen. Shawn glanced up from the trio of bookmaker’s sandwiches he was making. “Is he now?”
“Big as life.” Out of habit, she checked her face and hair in the little mirror she’d hung beside the door. “ Aidan’s pulling him a pint of lager and chatting him up at the bar, though the Finkle looks to be all business.”
Knowing his sister’s skills, Shawn gestured with his knife. “Give me him in a hundred words or less.”
Darcy narrowed her eyes, tapped a finger to her lips. “Middle fifties and balding. Sensitive about it, as he does a comb-over. A prosperous belly that tells me he likes his food. Married, but not above casting an eye. An indoor man. A company man used to taking orders and giving them on down the line. Frugal, as Mary Kate tells me he bargained fierce on the room rate even though it’s on his expense account. Urban through and through and a bit of a dandy. I could pluck my eyebrows in the shine off his shoes.”
“Well done.” Shawn’s eyes glittered with anticipation. “You won’t have any trouble charming him, will you?”
With the smuggest of smiles, Darcy examined her nails. “Shooting fish in a barrel.”
“I’m not talking about leading him into temptation, Darcy, just making him stumble around the far edges of it.”
“Give me some credit. I said he was married. I’m not a homewrecker.”
“Sorry. It was the look in your eye. It’s a terror you are to mankind.”
She took a tube out of her tip pocket and freshened her lipstick, with her eye on Shawn’s in the mirror. “Mankind loves terrors like me.”
“I can’t argue with you there, as I’ve seen too many of the fallen. I’ll help you serve the sandwiches here, so the Finkle can get a look at the harmless brother.”
In harmony with him, Darcy helped Shawn load the tray. “He’s impatient, I’d say, to get a look at things, eye the land, talk his deal.”
“He’s in Ireland now,” Shawn said easily. “Rushing isn’t the Gallagher way.”
He put the orders together and got some bowls of crisps for the bar. “I wasn’t daydreaming,” he said to Darcy’s back, lifting his voice slightly as they
